Red-necked Stint

[Mark Young]

I took this one last Sunday late arvo, about an hour before sunset.

Originally I thought the colour of the water a tad dull, so I did a slight curves adjustment to lighten it.

Canon 400 300f4+1.4tc, ISO200, f7.1, 1/800, -0.7, Av mode, Ev metering.
Cropped approx 40%

[Dan Busby]

Lots to like about this one Mark. Good lighting and nice detail in the bird. IMO you have over-lightened the water. I would look at cropping out the dark foreground along the lower edge. I would also look at getting rid of the dark patch in the water on the LH side.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Very similar to a Sanderling!

I like the low angle, sharpeness as posted is spot on and the exposure looks good (although the whitest whites could be toned down a wee bit). I'm personally OK with the light water. The lower dark area along bottom edge is quite dominant and would be nice to either tone it down, or crop away a bit more. I really like the posture and feeding behaviour of the subject but I would have preferred the head to be angled towards us more. I'd also like at toning down the dark areas in the BG.

[Mark Young]

Thanks for the comments and input Dan and Daniel,

Repost with some of the lower edge removed, the top LH corner with blobs removed, slight toning down of whites in the breast, and slight removal of blue from the overall picture.

Daniel, RNS and Sanderlings do look very much alike and are other confused with one another. Mostly it is when someone is viewing a Stint and trying to work out if it's a Sanderling. The general rule of thumb is if you spend 10 mins wondering what it is then it's definetly a RNS. But when both are seen together in non-breeding plumage, the Sanderling is slightly larger, with more white above and below, and with a longer bill.